Knowing how your business is perceived by your customers, employees, the public, and other stakeholders is a huge and often overlooked part of being successful. The brand is your promise, your reputation, and your first impression to prospects, partners, and other stakeholders. It is

We were getting ready to embark on a new marketing initiative. I asked Naomi what she thought about it. She said she didn’t trust the new process yet and felt like we might be making our brand vulnerable. She was somewhat apologetic but said she felt like she needed to protect our

This post is a follow-up to last month’s “Are you where your customers are?” post. I challenged you to do research and figure out where your customers are in terms of social networking sites. Once you know where your target market is, then you can build a focused st

When LinkedIn launched the ability for connections to endorse you for skills on your profile in September of 2012, I sat back and watched. As Endorsements came in for me, it became a fascinating study of how people perceive what I do. I knew this information had implications for my

Asking for customer email addresses is a big deal and needs to be part of a well-thought out marketing strategy. Here is a story illustrating my point. I often use my Twitter stream to look for and read the top stories posted by our two local newspapers. One day when I clicked on a

As simple as this question sounds, many organizations do not spend enough time thinking through their answer. Instead, we are pressured to be where everyone else is even if it doesn’t make sense for our particular market. <Honest and Transparent Moment: I have been guilty o

I received the following email this morning. This LinkedIn group is one I like to keep up to date on but don’t necessarily feel the need to visit on a regularly basis. Therefore, I have a weekly digest sent to me. Isn’t that the point of the weekly digests? To keep you

In one of my last posts, I talked about how much content is out there and how much of it isn’t meaningful. I advocated for fewer words, more meaning. For many of us, I think the lack of meaning in our content stems from the fact that we don’t know what our audience really

In case you haven’t noticed, LinkedIn is now letting you recognize your connections for their skills and expertise through Endorsements. It’s good to recognize your connections, right? However, the more powerful application of this tool is your ability to use it to do informal resear